


His Last Breath

by morgana07



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Emotional Sam Winchester, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Mention of Canon Death, POV First Person, Season/Series 15, Spoilers, Tissue Warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:39:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27870141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgana07/pseuds/morgana07
Summary: 1-shot. Sam’s POV. /Sam Winchester has been through a lot. He has coped with a lot but now muses on what he will always consider the hardest out of all of it. *Set after 15x20 Carry On* Spoilers.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 45





	His Last Breath

**Author's Note:**

> Tag: 15x20- Carry On
> 
> Spoilers: Yes, as there are things mentioned from the series finale, there will be spoilers.
> 
> Warnings: Tissue warning and a couple bad words.
> 
> Beta’d By: cyncitymojo and JaniceC678
> 
> Author Note: This is probably one of the shortest pieces I’ve ever written and it’s based on something seen on Twitter about how Sam was the one to feel/hear Dean take his last breath so I cried so I added a tissue warning. Also thanks to lotrspnfangirl for the medical answer I needed.

His Last Breath

“‘ _I love you. My baby brother_.’”

“‘ _It’s… okay, Dean. You can… go_.’”

“‘ _Goodbye, Sam_.’”

I thought burying Dean after the hellhounds came for him when his deal came due would be the hardest thing I’d ever have to face.

I thought holding my brother as he died after Metatron stabbed him, taking him back to the bunker with plans to get drunk enough that putting him in the Impala and driving us both off a cliff sounded good to me was the worst thing I’d ever have to think. Of course, Crowley screwed that idea up.

I thought the pain of thinking of Dean using himself as a goddamn bomb to defeat Amara in order to save the world was the most painful thing I’d ever have to cope with.

I thought the fear of losing Dean to Michael that night in the church when Michael took him over and vanished was the scariest thing I’d have to face, and, considering some of the crap we’ve faced, that was saying a lot.

All of those times combined with so many other things in our lives either while growing up or hunting together again don’t even come close to what I now know will be for as long as I live the hardest, the most painful, and the scariest thing I will have dealt with.

Those few people still living that know us, knew Dean, would probably say me having to accept the hard reality that no deals were to be made this time to bring him back and having to give Dean a proper hunter’s funeral would be that thing… but it’s not.

Oh, that hurt. Don’t get me wrong. Building that pyre out of wood I cut down myself, making sure it was made correctly like he taught me, like we’d done for Dad and finally for Bobby, had me in tears. Making certain everything that I knew Dean would want to be burned with him, plus a couple other items I felt had to be included, had me sobbing worse than I did the day I dug his grave after his deal came due.

Not even the brutal thoughts that, after all we’d faced, all my brother had faced these last fifteen years or before, that it was a goddamn vampire and a piece of fucking rebar that did what no angel, no demon, no monster ever could and that was kill my big brother, are coming close to being the hardest thing to handle.

It’s not even the chick flick moment to beat them all, when he realized that night was it, that Dean finally gave himself permission to have, that’s coming close to breaking me.

It’s not even hearing him say he loved me or asking me to tell him that it was okay for him to stop fighting like he has fought for so long or that final goodbye that has nearly sent me into a bottle of whiskey every night since I lit that pyre.

No. That honor belongs to something so simple that we take it for granted… until it’s the last thing you feel as you stand helplessly by to watch your older brother, the man that raised you, taught you everything you know, die in front of you.

When I told him it was okay to go, when he said goodbye to me that last time, we were close enough so that, when his strength finally left him and Dean’s head fell forward, I not only heard his last breath but felt just the barest ghost of it hit my neck.

The grief of losing Dean had already started to hit me, but then that realization came at the same time as I felt his hand fall away from mine where it had been covering his other one on his chest and I felt his heart stop beating a second or two after he drew his last breath.

I had seen my brother torn to shreds by invisible hellhounds. I had seen him stabbed by a crazy angel, but until the day I die, it will be hearing Dean’s last breath that will haunt me every time I close my eyes or when I still wake up screaming for him.

I know what he told me. I know what he’d want me to do, and I will carry on in my own way. But the grief in my heart, my soul, the memories of that night in a barn in Ohio when I said goodbye to the greatest man in my life will always be with me until one day we meet again and can cruise open roads listening to the greatest hits of mullet rock.

**The End**


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